Philosophy Dictionaries

Literature Quote

OBJECTIVITY

[A123] Kant distinguishes two sense of objectivity, namely objective validity and objective existence. In opposing subjective and objective existence, Kant denies that appearances have only subjective existence, that they "exist only in being known". He asserts the objective reality of appearances, namely, by claiming that they are empirically real objects. Kant also speaks of space and time (the conditions of sensibility) and of the categories (the conditions of the understanding) as being objectivity, as being objectively valid; here he means that space and time and the categories are essential to all possible experience, because they are necessary conditions of us representing an object; as such they are [B128] "objective conditions of all knowledge".